Month: December 2023

Music of 2023

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This is where I talk about how I barely scratched the surface of new music releases this year. I seem to say something like that just about every year, but it’s especially true this year. I barely spent any time exploring beyond the realm of music I already knew. It feels like blasphemy against myself, but 2023 was an extremely difficult year for me, so it stands to reason that novelty that required active participation was going to get dropped. I was going for comfortable and easy and, unfortunately for past-me, quiet.

I’d like to be more aware of what’s going on in the stoner rock, doom, heavy, metal scenes, but for the moment I’m relying on end-of-year lists to let me know what I missed, and maybe later I’ll get back to things. It could be that I’m changing enough as a person in recent years that once-primary choices are becoming more of a side gig and the next thing hasn’t filled the gap yet, but I don’t think I’ll actually know what’s what until my life settles down long enough that I can comfortably relax with stray bullshit artistic opinions minus the screaming of “homelessness! poverty! death! pain!” constantly going on in the background. I would like to hope that that’s soon, but probably not. So here we are, with me escaping to things that appeal to mass populous and folks who have the musical exploration abilities of a trying to dig a 50ft hole with a single broken chopstick.

Here’s what Last.fm says I listened to a lot this year (via a recordable source, anyway):

Vitalic, Ashnikko, Idles, Fever Ray, Nine Inch Nails, King Buffalo, Monster Magnet, Queens of the Stone Age, Tool, All Them Witches, Goldfrapp, Black Cobra, Doja Cat, Goat, !!!, Meshuggah, Paramore, Black Sabbath, Domkraft, Kyuss.

If you’ve been following my musical journey for years, you know a lot of these bands are my personal elevator music. The only unpredictable oddball here is Paramore, who I never listened to before 2023.

As for albums that came out this year, in order of play frequency:

Ashnikko – Weedkiller
Fever Ray – Radical Romantics
Paramore – This Is Why
Alison Goldfrapp – The Love Invention
Domkraft – Sonic Moons
Stoned Jesus – Father Light
[does this count? It wasn’t finished when I posted 2022’s albums.] All Them Witches – Baker’s Dozen
Dozer – Drifting in the Endless Void

That doesn’t include youtube, which would mean including Doja Cat, raising Dozer and Stoned Jesus up a little, and singles for next year for Dua Lipa and Slift.

Habits don’t necessarily translate to recognition of total quality, so let’s talk about that.

As for heavy music, the above habits pretty accurately display my preferences in order for the year. Domkraft hit the spot with its novel familiarity. It immediately sounded like it already belonged and for perhaps that reason seems to be my stand-out favorite heavy album of 2023. Next is Stoned Jesus‘ new one, which seemed less talked about in my limited sphere than it probably should have been until I started seeing end-of-year lists. Who knew new Dozer album? I didn’t listen to it as much as the other two after the initial “yays” passed but I think it was bad timing mixed with just accepting that they’ve been a seed stoner rock band for me since I knew the term as a genre and not just a way to explain away Pink Floyd. After these three, I don’t really feel qualified to talk about what else came out this year.

The depth of I-hate-existence this year shifted my tastes musically to needing something a little brighter. I let space for me to try Olivia Rodrigo, an idea that would have annoyed if not offended me on a surface level years ago as I got more into metalisms. Just, WHAT? What am I doing here? Why? How the fuck? Where’d the Electric Wizard cosplay go? It’s still there. I just needed to know, and I found out, and here we are once again battling surface-level contradictions. My inner teenager is so annoyed with my lack of stick-to-it-iveness and appealing to popular bullshit.

I’m getting something out of it, at least. It’s not just background music, even when it is, because of the initial appeal. That sarcasm on the song “All-American Bitch” is fantastic and reminds me of the appeal of, well, “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks and “Criminal” by Fiona Apple some absurd number of years ago when I didn’t think too hard about music in general and cared more lyrics and surface presentation. On the surface I was expecting cry-about-love music or something otherwise simplistic to the existence of “girls”, forgetting that human experience doesn’t actually change that much after about 15 years old, give or take, and younger people are consistently devalued as dumb.

And same goes for Paramore, who are closer to me in age, but whose core audience has been on some other musical planet entirely from me until this point. Then I saw them do “This Is Why” on whatever talk show clip, and holy shit. What a performer. And way to take me right back to earlier pandemic times in a hurry, not just on that song. The front half of the new album feels like a cathartic therapy session… and then I remember I’m listening to Paramore and no amount of musical quirk or relatable lyrics are going to keep me static here.

Normally Goldfrapp has a stickiness to them for me, whether they were doing soft emotional poetry or dance music. It was curious to hear that Alison had a solo album coming, and initially it hit with “Love Invention” and “So Hard So Hot” but I think I overdid it. With roots in disco, that probably follows, since disco has its own expiration when satisfying turns repetitively annoying. I feel like this might be one of those albums that only works for certain mindsets. Also, I think I wanted more dance here, rather than a switch back and forth to more Piscean music.

Ashnikko and Fever Ray albums both aesthetically and socially remind of a lot of the same topics, with Ashnikko’s being more transparent and aggressive than the other – granted “I’m not a girl, I’m a swarm of bees” has stiff competition with Fever Ray’s threat to a bully on “Even It Out“. It’s not a competition, though; I’m a horror fan, please dole out more dark expressions of pretty violence. While Fever Ray is more subtle and hard to pin on album, the music videos play with gender expectations and sexuality in a way that feels very timely and important. Song of the year “Carbon Dioxide“, though, didn’t go there and instead appeals to the retro and geeky crowds on video and gave me a high dose of digital serotonin.

Ashnikko’s album doesn’t superficially have a flow to it because each song is so different, but I ended up listening to it more than any other specifically because of “Cheerleader” (not the beeeeees!), “Moonlight Magic”, and “Miss Nectarine” all working perfectly together and causing me to stick around longer. Initially I thought “Worms” and “Weedkiller” would annoy me a few weeks into the future, but I ended up with pieces of either stuck in my head for months. You may have missed the promo she did for the album, laying in a natural art installation expressionless for the album’s play while NPCs lingered stuck in the room with her. How to give me anxiety 101. I appreciate all the weird she’s throwing around, between her music and fashion/art, making me wish she’d been around in 2005 even though I don’t think the world was ready for her before recently.

I meant to write more, but at this point it’s the final day of the year, and the last time I decided to wait until January to finish an end-of-year post, I didn’t end up posting it at all. Other music has made a mark this year, but my hand (ow) and head are not into repeating myself or writing something over-detailed and epic that no one is going to read.

I haven’t scoured the internet for clues about what’s coming in 2024 yet. I do know Slift is coming in January, which I’ve already heard/seen in part and appreciate. Dua Lipa posted a new song recently, so if you like poppy dance bass with lyrics that rhyme with “peeny” to entertain your inner 12 year old, that’s a good’un. We’ve also got a new Ministry album coming in March, apparently Sleepytime Gorilla Museum is back to horrify us all with their chaos, and *omfg* new Whores album in 2024. We couldn’t finish this post without me working in that one.

Theories, too, come in like vaguely written Nostradamus threats of a future that never arrives. Will the OM album finally happen in 2024? Please do. I previously tried to oracle out a Tool album for 2024 but so far they haven’t said anything definitive. I saw lists of names in the heavy music camp – High on Fire and Nails included – but there’s a serious lack of sources attached, so who’s to say whether or not those bands or any other actually release anything at all. I did just see Idles has a new one, dated as February 16th, so get excite.

Until then, bitch, I, said what I said:

TV & Books of 2023

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Books of 2023

So, I only read part of a single book released in the past year. However, I read – if briefly – more than one book this year, which is a christmas miracle after so many years of not reading much beyond astrology textbooks and whatever internet things.

I finished The Martian Chronicles. I’ve already written about that, and it was a positive experience. Definitely recommend if you like spooky sci-fi and quick, easy reads.

As for this year’s releases, the single book I began to read was the Britney Spears memoir. I got about halfway in. I probably could have finished it but it came out at the same time my mom died, so my follow-through wasn’t up to snuff. That said, I was really enjoying it in terms of astrological reference, both in general and the commonalities vs differences between my own and her chart. We have the same Ascendant and some of the things she said about her youth echoed how I noticed people treated me at around the same times. Her first video taking place in a school is wild with her Sun in 3rd, too. Among other things. I went total astro nerd. Perhaps I should read more biographies just for that reason.

I picked at others, but one other I got past a few paragraphs: Crossing Over by John Edward. That’s also a memoir style read, about a medium approaching the time of when his TV show began. I remember that show (Crossing Over) airing near early 2001 on Sci-Fi and being glued to the TV fascinated about how any of this was possible. My skepticism easily set it aside as a “whatever” but every so often I end up back on these sorts of thoughts. Semi-recent exploration of tarot has me back there, wondering about the creativity of the human mind to fill in blanks and make things fit even when they’re entirely made-up or random. But then comes thoughts of how the core human experience might be so simple and predictable that it follows that any of this works simply because it pretty much always will, irrelevant of audience or timing or source or method. Then I’m brought back to mediums who give better in terms of details and the shared opinions about what takes place post-death. I wonder if, instead of literals, perhaps there’s no post-death and what these people pick up is akin to general awareness of living human space, and it’s the human mind interpreting it as beyond life due to the idea being psychologically comforting. In any case, the fascination remains, despite all the questioning in the world. If nothing else, it’s an interesting story.

I have to assume more reading will be coming in the following year as I’m due to lose my access to near-24/7 internet and electricity. I hope that’s not the case, but being a realist, it’s probably best to assume I’m probably going to finish more than one book this next year.

TV of 2023

Is anyone going to be surprised if I say my favorite TV show experience this year was watching Three-Body Problem? I’m seriously considering rewatching it, but with the Netflix version of the same story coming soon enough (March?) I will probably hold out and see how I feel after. In any case, this was the first chinese TV show I’ve ever seen, and it was weird how fast I didn’t have to always look at the subtitles given my total lack of experience with the language. The show itself had an odd flow, starting in a weird depressive place (the main guy has an existential crisis), then going fucking bonkers with hard science terminology and concepts, and then taking a left turn into the past. The video game scenes were done well, and the specific computer science episode about broke my brain. I should know these things. For that reason, this would be an excellent show to introduce on a younger person getting into science who can handle a bit of dark, apocalyptic content. Should I read Silent Spring? Dehydrate!

My other favorite show of 2023 was Silo. It felt similar to other claustrophobic sci-fi I’ve seen, particularly whichever season of The 100 where some of the kids live underground for too long and Deep Space Nine. The world-building and depth of characters and acting and set design and everything about the show was perfect. I’m curious to see how another season will go given the ending opening up a fresh can of worms. heh.

I saw a few horror shows, and both The Last of Us and The Fall of the House of Usher did a fair job at keeping my brain occupied without making me feel like I wasted my time. The death scenes in Usher were rough on the soul, especially the first one. The Last of Us felt familiar to a thousand movies and episodes I’ve seen before but for some reason the mall episode continues to stick in mind and I’m curious to see where the show goes from here.

Yellowjackets was fun to catch up on and see. I’m not a big fan of being strung along from episode one for answers about what happened where, but the 5-star casting and occasional silliness works.

I know I saw For All Mankind this year since it’s currently airing. This is another excellent sci-fi show with, now, enough modern realism to just about piss you off. Imagine a world where we kept going to the moon, actively exploring space tech, and trying to do fucking anything besides waste money on the war machine. 9/11 didn’t happen in this reality. But the war machine clearly exists in this world, too, and that’s where the current season is at when it’s not playing around with workers vs the rich concepts. It seems timely in a way the previous seasons didn’t, even though it’s talking about the early-mid 2000s, because of the current flavor of international politics. Assuming they jump ahead another full decade, the next season will be almost current day, probably with absurd tech attached.

I finally watched Over The Garden Wall. I did not expect a silly cartoon to work that well. It has an autumnal gothic style with a weird manic comedic energy and the episodes are perfectly short for both kids and not-into-cartoons people. Now I know why I keep seeing one episode’s pumpkin guy everywhere these days. If you haven’t seen it before, hold out for falling leaves & rainy nights times and binge it.

I barely remember the final season of Physical now, but for that reason, I think they ended it in a good place. The story didn’t feel 100% complete, but the given plot was wrapped up after what felt like a janky season by comparison to the previous two. I’d recommend the 1st season if you’re interested in an early 80s-era drama featuring bad mental health that’ll take every Californian alive then back in fuckin’ time.

And Just Like That went to the usual nonsense places it does, where people with money have people with money problems and we sprinkle in social and/or relationship issues to ponder on top. This franchise is brain candy. You already know how you feel about it by now.

Season one of Invasion was excellent. Two was too slow with too much going on so the story barely moved forward. I would hope that’s fixed in the third season, which has yet to air.

The Morning Show is doing similar things with reality vs fantasy that For All Mankind is, just compressed to very modern times and politics of the moment. Until this past season, most of the content was an obvious simile of the time period, covering very early covid and #metoo and the like. This past season seemed like it was going to talk about megarich people buying out companies they don’t have the credentials to run but it took a turn away from talking about Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and went somewhere I didn’t recognize as a metaphor for 2022 anymore. The lack of resolution for a lot of those things in real life probably contributes. The next season will meet modern times close enough that I wonder if they plan to switch things up more towards personal dramas and make-believe over addressing modern news issues. If they wait long enough, they can just talk about the 2024 election, but probably by 2025 when it airs we’ll all be sick of that shit.

I either wasn’t alive or wasn’t very conscious of the world for the time periods The Crown covered prior to its last season. The last one had a lot of awkward familiarity. I remember when Diana died and the world acted real fucking weird about it. I’m the same age as William, so that also echoed familiarity as he grew up in the show. I didn’t pay attention to what was going on overseas, didn’t find whatever these people were doing very relevant, so this show might as well be entirely made-up, but the sore spots it hits about people and life and sadness of one’s time and usefulness coming to a close worked. It probably could have gone for another season, but it remains to be seen how things will pan out for the current dude and his children.

I’m struggling to remember when I watched certain shows because I don’t keep a record of shows like I do movies. Did I watch House of the Dragon early this year or late last? Wednesday? Yellowstone? I do remember it took quite a while to catch up on Yellowstone, and that was a quality watch.

I tried the shows From, Archive 81, Servant, Ascension, Shining Vale, The Peripheral, Cabinet of Curiosities, Interview with the Vampire, Willow… Didn’t finish Willow, Interview with the Vampire is great horror brain candy, Cabinet was fun, The Peripheral just was, Shining Vale didn’t really hit, Ascension the same, Servant has its moments but something about it doesn’t work well, Archive 81 was fine, and From was good but I’m not caught up to see where it was going.

One more: The White Lotus‘s 2nd season. I waited to see it until I was in a better mood for comedy, and it was another decent job of keeping things interesting on planet rich lady vacation. If there’s a 3rd season, I’m curious to see if the lack of a certain character will matter to the tone of the show or if we’ve all but literally jumped the shark on this one.

This was a lot of words, hence why I started with my favorites, but the TLDR is that I highly recommend Three-Body Problem to those into hard science fiction, Silo for those into dramatic sci-fi, The Fall of the House of Usher for those into moody + gory horror, and Over The Garden Wall if you’ve got young kids but you need some light spoopy content.

Favorite Movies of 2023

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Behold: My favorite movies seen in 2023.

I started working on this list a few weeks early to ensure it got done without hurried waffling, and in the end I decided to keep it short and simple anyway. Links to everything I’ve already written about are included at the bottom if you want another paragraph or ten for context.

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

I put off watching this movie for years, on top of already being super late to the party simply for being born two decades after its release. The Cold War felt like an outdated thing from ancient times by the time I was an adult and not even my love of Depeche Mode could get me to intentionally watch this title. But it has an 8.4 rating on IMDB, so there must be something to it? Granted, ratings aren’t everything, and I tend not to agree with the everyday button-pushing critic when it comes to select topics, so who really knows? Turns out my annoyance with it still being in my queue, so to speak, finally got me to watch it.

Little did I know, for the total lack of research, that this was a war movie and I love myself a quality war movie, especially those like this where one is having to deal with complicated ethics and one’s humanity. I’m also a fan of single-setting movies, and while this isn’t purely that, the amount of time it spends in one room is felt, giving every actor plenty of space for their character to develop without distraction.

While watching this, I wasn’t really thinking of myself, but I did notice the separation between my everyday existence and what’s put on display here. Why do I in particular enjoy movies like this? But I think the same goes for Joker or Taxi Driver or The Mist: movies like this speak to a core part of being human and recognizing those dark moments in others, including seeing when their decisions or opinions are coming from a place of fear or lust or ego sooner than one of ascension. Technically this movie is a comedy and the ending is supposed to feel like a The Aristocrats-level punchline, but the height of gross it takes to get there also makes it feel like an emotional relief that we don’t end up actually going to that shitty place after all. In reality: holy fucking shitballs, either way.

Despite being just short of 60 years old, it also felt incredibly relevant. It’s not the Cold War anymore, but hyper-masculine politics and talk of wars up to and including the end of humanity are still status quo. There’s no covid in this, but it still felt like it might as well have released in 2020 or 2023.

If you haven’t seen Dr Strangelove before, it’s about a military mistake that leads to a group gathering to discuss how to prevent further issues, with key players in that outcome being completely unreliable. It’s dark, there’s war and death and talk of rape, so don’t watch it if your head isn’t screwed on tight. And if you haven’t seen it in decades, maybe it’s time for a rewatch.

For being so sticky and cathartic and fascinating, this was easily the best movie I saw this year.

Threads

Threads explores essentially the same topic as Dr Strangelove, removed to the 1980s and focused on a family dealing with the oncoming presence then aftermath of nuclear war. On the surface: ok cool. In practice: I never, ever want to see this movie again. So glad I put off watching this until after the heaviness of 2020 had passed.

This is the darkest movie I’ve seen that wasn’t straight up horror. But horror is often fun, and this was not fun. I recommend it only in the sense that I don’t recommend it, except also it should be required viewing for every politician ever and maybe everyone who gets into any kind of social space where they have responsibility over the lives of tons of people. This movie is a hardcore reminder that suffering fucking sucks and we shouldn’t collectively find ourselves there. Exhibit A: real life. Exhibit B: Threads.

Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.

As for movies released in 2023, at the time of writing this paragraph, I think Margaret might be my personal favorite movie of the year. There’s a few days left of the year, so maybe in two days I’ll change my mind, but I’ve seen most of the big movies hyped up for the year, and this was one step above those.

I still haven’t read the book, but the movie has a comfortable flow to it in the way the story develops and changes. It’s not the easiest story in the world given topics like religion and family issues, but the weight it carries feels about right for both the primary audience and the relatively young character. This doesn’t go the awkward route that Welcome to the Dollhouse does, or the tragic route that My Girl does, or go to the more adult-adjacent place that Now & Then does, but it feels like it belongs in that realm of so-called coming-of-age movies. I could see 11 year old me switching off Critters to watch this and getting tons out of it. It felt like an automatic classic akin to what Fried Green Tomatoes does for menopausal women, coming from the other end of that spectrum. That said, I’m approaching menopausal, and this was still a lovely, emotionally satisfying watch.

There are plenty of other movies I could type about, but for that I’ve provided lists below.

As for the bigger 2023 events, I thought Barbie was fine but a bit too pedestrian for my ilk. It has its target audience and it was obvious that I’m not that. That said, if it introduces even simplistic first grader feminism on a new crowd who mysteriously weren’t there yet, that’s fine with me.

Oppenheimer, too, had some mild issues of being a little too simple to meet larger cultural issues of not “getting it”, nevermind packing a lot of information into a single movie. I hope this one led to some folks looking up physicists in general, especially since WWII. Being person-focused was a good choice, though, and I suspect it’ll win a couple of Oscars.

The Covenant covered some very familiar ground but it had its own spin and is very worth seeing if you like movies featuring war and brotherhood. It was akin to Lord of the Rings set in Afghanistan. This was my favorite movie of 2023 until I saw Margaret (a thought one can chew on).

This year didn’t have a Men kind of movie, at least not that I saw, but No One Will Save You was a fantastic horror-sci fi movie. While not technically horror, if still being in Camp WTF, Leave The World Behind was a fun experience and another one of those movies where you can tell who has poor listening skills by who poo-pooed the ending. Talk To Me had more mass appeal and was also decent with key disturbing scenes. I’m a fan of found footage style horror (no shaky cam, thanks) so Missing‘s style of story-telling as well as plot development hit for me.

Sisu supposedly came out in 2022 but the IMDB info says it was actually released in the US in 2023, so it’s hard to say which year it qualifies for exactly. But it needs typed about: I LOVED this movie. Once it got going and you realize what the main character is about to go through, the cartoonish Wile E Coyote vs Road Runner-like dumbness of the whole thing just worked for me. This is one of those movies where I wanted to call my dad and beg him to see this one ASAP. He would have been halfway to hysterical when main dude somehow survived one scene. IMDB doesn’t have this listed as a comedy, for the record, but as an action/war movie. I guess we have/had an odd sense of humor.

Another Oscar-level one, Past Lives is getting noise in certain crowds who appreciate film doing different things. There was empty space in this movie where you’d normally expect this or that to occur to hurry along a story, but instead it gave tons of breathing room to understand exactly where these people are at and how they related to each other. It was a nice reminder that movies don’t have to be go, go, go all of the time to make an impact.

I also really appreciated Women Talking. It has a simple premise and a largely single setting. The slow reveal of exactly what they’re talking about, and why, and what the actual world they live in means to them made for a fantastic movie experience.

And for the words I’ll be typing today, I should also type about Ghostwatch. I’ve heard about this movie in the horror crowd but never quite made it there until this year. It just doesn’t have the appeal that a modern movie does and its synopsis doesn’t make an impact on level of “I should see this”. Actually watching it still took a few minutes to settle in as potentially worth seeing, but the early 90s memory flashbacks pulled me in and my tolerance for found footage kept me going long enough for something to keep me glued. I ended up liking the pre-dated Blair Witch meets Ghost Hunters (the TV show) style but the swift conclusion sealed the deal as this coming out as quality despite the sometimes corny ride to get there. I wish I’d seen it back when it was first out.

Movies I did not like: The Outwaters. There’s no excuse for how badly filmed this was. While it was trying for something new, and that can be appreciated, the execution was terrible. I also attempted to watch Skinamarink, skimmed forward, realized what I was getting into, and noped out. Not staring at dark walls for 90 minutes, thanks. I might need to go back to it eventually in the right mindset. And since we’re talking down about horror movies featuring the youths, There’s Something Wrong With The Children was just boring. No kids, but also Deep House and The Nun II. I haven’t mentioned a straight drama here since I’m a little more picky and inclined to believe a low rating equates to a poor quality movie when I choose those.

I’ve talked about pretty much everything else I’ve seen this year that was new to me elsewhere on this site, and that leaves about three days worth of movies to be typed up next year.

The better ones released in 2023:
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret.
The Covenant
Sisu
Oppenheimer
No One Will Save You
Leave The World Behind
Talk To Me
Past Lives
Missing
Knock At The Cabin

From before 2023:
Dr Strangelove
Women Talking
Ghostwatch
Metropolis
Elvis
All Quiet on the Western Front
Exam
Gold Diggers of 1933

The “experiences” of 2023 that I wouldn’t necessarily recommend unless you’re in the mood for “an experience”:
Threads (10/10 horror movie that isn’t a horror movie, may never watch again)
Grave of the Fireflies (tears)
Antiporno (confusion in the name of ArtTM)
Mad God (a long Tool video)
Triangle of Sadness (people are disgusting)
Society (ditto)
The Piano Teacher (sad-gross)
Videodrome (weird but ok)

The Astrology of 2024… and then some.

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The Astrology of 2024:

Pluto – starts the year at 29°21′ Capricorn, retrograde at 2°06 Aquarius May 2nd, ends year at 1°02 Aquarius

Neptune – starts 25°05 Pisces, retrograde at 29°56 Pisces on July 2nd, ends 27°17 Pisces

Uranus – 19 Taurus start, 27 Taurus retrograde September 1st, ends 23 Taurus (still retrograde until late January 2025)

Saturn – 3 Pisces start, 19 Pisces retrograde June 29th, ends 14 Pisces

Jupiter – starts at 5 Taurus, ends at 13 Gemini, retrograde 21 Gemini on October 9th to February 4th 2025 at 11 Gemini

Mars – late Sagittarius to early Leo, retrograde in Leo 12/6/24 to 2/23/25

Venus – no retrogrades until Spring 2025

Mercury retrogrades
12/13/23-1/1/2024 (8 Cap-22 Sag)
4/1-4/25 (27 Ari-16 Ari)
8/4-8/28 (4 Vir-21 Leo)
11/25-12/15 (22 Sag-6 Sag)

Eclipses (node in Aries all year)
3/25 – 5 Aries/Libra (sextile/trine Pluto)
4/8 – 19 Aries
9/17 – 25 Virgo/Pisces (conjunct/opposite Neptune, sextile/trine Uranus)
10/2 – 10 Libra (square Mars)

Notable transits
Jupiter conjunct Uranus – April 20 2024, 21 Taurus
Jupiter trine Pluto – June 2, 1 Gemini/Aquarius
Jupiter square Saturn – August 19, 17 Gemini/Pisces, but close much of the second half of the year
Uranus sextile Neptune closest near September ~27-28 Taurus/Pisces
Mars conjunct Pluto – 2/13, 0 Aquarius
Mars conjunct Saturn – early April, 14 Pisces
Mars conjunct Neptune – late April, 28 Pisces
Mars conjunct Uranus – July, 26 Taurus
Mars conjunct Jupiter – August, 16 Gemini
Mars square Saturn – August, 17 Gemini/Pisces

I don’t think anyone is coming here for general interpretation, especially since that’s not my focus, but… 2024 doesn’t have some of the big deal transits that previous years had. The last time Saturn was in Pisces was around 1994 to earlier 1996, specifically near the same spot it is this next year in 1994, and I’m guessing for anyone who isn’t 100 years old, that would be the best place for similarity comparison, even though other planets are in different places. Jupiter cycles through the zodiac every 12 years, so 2012-2013 (second half 2012-first half 2013) and mostly 2001 (first half of the year) were the last times it was in Gemini. I think the square Jupiter and Saturn make is notable, but more so if you have a planet near 17 degrees. With the election coming next year and that being the time the political ads start getting persistent, the square combo seems to be a red flag for lies lies lies. Saturn likes to fact-check and will be doing so to any blowhard types, but don’t trust anything potentially too good to be true going on in general social environments near that time. Mars joins the party as well, so maybe some over-the-top ideological fighting going on near August. It’s an election year, so yeah.

The other big one is Jupiter conjunct Uranus in Taurus, which I would assume has to do with artificial intelligence. Taurus is a tactile sign but Uranus is pushing a technological leaning there right now, and Jupiter nearby is asking for growth/expansion. More weird. Alternatively, Jupiter could be law, and there could be law discussions about tech topics just then, especially in regards to resources, money, and ownership. If you have a planet near 21 degrees Taurus/Scorpio/Aquarius/Leo, expect potential breakdowns or surprises or, with Jupiter, sudden muses near April.

And me.

Pluto is still square my Moon all year, from my Placidus 4th house, but the final exact transit is in August. It’s also square my Jupiter and approaching sextile of my Uranus.

My mom just died, so there’s that. But I feel myself generally struggling with family concepts and a sense of place/belonging/”home”. Back when Pluto was sextile my Moon from early Capricorn years ago, it was the first time since my arrival here that I felt connected to the place I lived and its general environment, but I was still going through family issues, and later Pluto squared my 4th house ruler and I lost my sense of place again. Moon rules my 10th and the idea then was to try to get more socially recognized education to create a better foundation for the future in case the shit hit the fan. Well, the shit hit the fan, and here we are, and I’m not sure anything I did back then actually helped long term. I think things have shifted to where people see me as a reflection of my Moon, currently evidently in a repair state, and it can be really aggravating as I’d rather not be seen as someone in a fucked, needy life state or treated as broken/whatever even though a lot of situations call for that in order to survive and get to the next thing.

Neptune is still square my Neptune. I have Neptune in the 3rd house and Neptune is transiting my 6th. This might be contributing to feeling like anything I attempt hits a wall thanks to my health. Also more family stuff. Not exact to the transit hits but close enough I started some paperwork (3rd house) to address health stuff (6th) but it won’t have resolution anytime soon. Perhaps things will start to clarify there when Neptune next exact squares my Neptune. Another thing is an idea I have about potential work in the future (6th) having to do with 3rd house topics, but I have no idea what’ll happen right now.

Uranus is in my 8th house, not making any major aspects. Death and debt have been feature recently, but, no major aspects.

Saturn’s finally really going to transit through Pisces and enter my 6th house. It starts the year sextile my Venus, quincunx Ascendant. Saturn entering new signs has historically been big deal shifts for me, but it’s been early Pisces for most of 2023, so guessing that’s already happening… So maybe sights should be on March 2024 when it squares my Mercury/Sun. When I was 12 that came out as a summer of video games and wandering around outside with the frogs and going to the river. I also moved both times Saturn was square that point (video games continued, nothing else did). So, am I moving in March? Seems about as likely as anything else right now. Saturn will continue to be square my Sun all year but it doesn’t make another exact hit. My Sun in 9th might be travel or higher education, and I don’t think the second one makes sense, but the travel? Maybe… I can’t technically travel but it could come out in small scale things, such as addressing not having a car and/or “wandering” or something like publishing/internet stuff. Saturn will be in my 6th house so maybe something related to those things in the realm of work and health. Maybe some issues with work tours or helping with an unusually important tour. Maybe some technical issue comes up where I need 9th house help (law/education/foreign) to address some health/work issues. Back in 1994 part of this came out in that my cat (another 6th house topic) suddenly had a huge natural backyard to wander around in and explore (9th house) so maybe something with pets, even though I don’t have any right now.

Jupiter starts the year in my 8th house and doesn’t make any exact major aspects until June after it’s entered Gemini and my 9th house. Right away, Jupiter opposite Uranus, trine Mars/Ascendant. That would be a shift in energy towards nervous energy and needing to get shit done. Jupiter conjuncts my Mercury/Sun in July. Ditto but more cerebral. Way back when Jupiter was in Gemini in 2001 I was CONSTANTLY writing. I don’t remember 2012/2013 in the same sense (I was writing, not on the same level) but I was definitely helping work on tours then, and there’s the 9th house part. Jupiter spends a lot of the year trine my Saturn, so potentially good news in the second half of the year in feeling valuable as an employee or physically okay. Saturn rules my 4th, so maybe a home thing.

The eclipses… The one in March is on my Ascendant/Descendant. There was a similar eclipse in 2005 and I don’t remember anything major then. (Although, between those Spring eclipses, my cat was born…) It’s notable that the September eclipse in 2024 is square my Neptune while Neptune is square my Neptune. I’ve had some prior eclipses from Virgo/Pisces come out as work things (such as quitting in 2006/2007 – those were eclipses) so might be similar.

I’m spacing out from doing too much astro but I think that about covers it as far as 2024 and how much detail I’m willing to pick through.

It’s the next day and I realized an astrological retrospective for 2023 was missing.

I’ve pretty much already talked about the slowest planets. Pluto square my Moon’s very 1st hit was when my mom was sick, when I was dealing with law stuff, and when I was extremely fucking anxious. Mom recovered, law stuff had an extremely frustrating took-too-long but I guess positive resolution, and the anxiety tempered over the next month or two. Pluto’s retrograde hit was close to my birthday when some help I asked for showed up. It may have been the exact day.

Neptune squared my Neptune the 1st time in April and the retrograde hit was in September. I’m not sure about the timing but, like I said, 6th (health) to 3rd house topics have been coming up.

Nothing Uranus, but the law stuff had to do with debt. 8th.

Saturn has still been in my Placidus 5th house all year. Sextile Neptune, trine Pluto, trine Moon, trine Jupiter, square Uranus, sextile Venus, quincunx Ascendant, trine Midheaven. Saturn went retrograde in June just before entering my Placidus 6th. Saturn’s trine to my Moon was my mom sick. Saturn didn’t exact trine my Moon again but was about 30(?) astrological minutes from orb of my Moon when my mom died. With 5th house literally representing children, the transit of Saturn in this house has coincided with me thinking I’m going through perimenopause, and this past year I had my longest cycle ever. Saturn sextile Venus might have helped with my law/debt thing (Venus in 8th). If I get help again later this month, it’ll be close to Saturn sextile Venus.

Jupiter started in my 7th and shifted to my 8th. Early in the year when Jupiter was opposite my Mars I learned of a bunch of information that took my idea of getting a car ASAP and threw it into the trash. Jupiter sextile 9th-house-Sun was when I learned of the law thing. Jupiter opposite Moon was when I was asking for help. Jupiter conjunct Venus is when I got it. No further exact aspects.

Mars had come out of retrograde in Gemini conjunct my Mercury/Sun early in the year when I was exploring car topics and learned I was fucked. The next conjunction with my Sun was a day journey to visit my mom. Mars was square my Saturn when I was dealing with law stuff. Mars conjunct my Pluto/Moon/Jupiter when my mom was just about to die and she died at Mars opposite my 8th house Venus. Mars is opposite my Mercury/Sun right now and have a super long post, plus supposedly someone is looking into a car for me (may not turn out or happen anytime soon) and I just requested a new driving lesson. Some days back when Mars was conjunct my Uranus in 3rd house, my neighbors were making a shitton of noise, slamming doors and dropping shit and walking harder than ever, despite having been pretty quiet for a while (and mostly since).

Venus was conjunct my Mercury when I did my first driving lesson. Inexact but close. Saturn was exactly quincunx my Ascendant. Neptune was a few minutes away from square my Neptune-in-3rd.

Venus retrograde in Leo was tough. It was in my 11th house and echoed a lot of loneliness I felt back in 2007 and 2015 at the same retrograde. Same 1999 but that was a more acute loneliness. I felt like Venus retrograde in 2015 partially contributed to the dramatics surrounding trying to move then, and I was wondering if that would echo forward, but nothing solid happened during the retrograde itself in regards to moving. But yeah, at this point, it felt like the last semi-stable time financially. After the retrograde, in 2007 I decided to quit, in 2015 I moved, and in 2023 I was getting help that appears to be drying up now. After each time before (also 1999 and likely also 1991) it was a period of question marks about money.

Should I do solar returns, too?

I have no idea where I’m going to be on my birthday in 2024. However, if I’m anywhere near here, I’m due to have a Scorpio Ascendant year, with Sun likely in the 8th house conjunct the 7th house ruler. I’m familiar with this basic SR chart situation from years past. The last one was 2020 (Sun in 7th), 1999 (Sun in 8th), 1995 (Sun in 8th), 1991 (Sun in 7th). All hard years. Post-birthday 1991 to pre-birthday 1992 was learning my parents were splitting and having a real fucking hard time. The 1995-1996 school year was easily my worst and home sucked. 1999 also sucked from birthday to birthday, with me fully splitting with boyfriend 1 and dealing with irritating boy topics onward, nevermind the toxic home environment. 2020’s birthday was when YellFest2020 started and later in the “year” was me clearing out the emotional decay in my life and having anxiety galore. It’s alarming to see the 2024 chart and not knowing what I could even do.

It’s only been half a year of it, but 2023 has Virgo Ascendant, Mercury in 9th conjunct Uranus, Sun in 10th, Moon in Scorpio in 3rd. I’m not really sure how the specifics of my understanding of these factors are playing out, but it’s still only been six months.

I haven’t looked at progressions in a while, so let’s do that.

Progressed Moon in Aries in progressed 5th approaching opposite Saturn/Mars at the start of 2023. It shifted into the 6th before exact aspects, which happened near mid-year. Moon opposite Pluto just recently passed. Moon enters Taurus around April 2024, where it opposes my natal Moon/Jupiter. Summer 2024 prog Moon conjuncts my natal Venus. It enters my progressed 7th house just before the end of the year.

There’s some repetition here that’s making me think the debt thing is going to come back and/or I’m going to fall for someone/something that’s going to die or break my heart and/or art takes the fuck off in a weird, subversive way. And we have thoughts like this and something else happens entirely, if still on topic.

I checked to see where prog Moon was last conjunct my natal Venus, and it was exact to the day I started writing in 1997. The initial topics I wrote were under the realm of Venus. On the flip side, prog Moon opposite my Venus in late 2009 was when I was thinking I needed to try a new form of music support because I didn’t feel like writing was working and I didn’t want to transition to “professional” review writing. The progressed Moon square Venus from Leo square was boyfriend stuff. Prog Moon square Venus from Aquarius was my mom in the hospital from known stroke #1 and me trying to find out what I could do about that on her return so we could both survive. In this chart progressed Moon is conjunct the IC. In short: not always the most obvious interpretation.

Alright, that’s enough astrology for today. Yes, this post took multiple days to write. If you read this and it just looks like words, imagine the concentration it takes to write. Burn away those brain cells.